Shadowbound

Shadowbound: Episode 6

There is so much blood.

Iron clings to the air as the floor runs red, sinking into every crack and crevice of stone. All of their prayers and loyalty, lost. It is on my hands, and I will give them justice.

You stride towards them, the clenching of your jaw the only evidence of your thinly veiled fury. I have seen what you are capable of. The three men on the road in the space of a breath, shadows bending to your will.

But this… this is different. There are too many of them.

You put yourself between me and them, and you are fast, but it is not enough. When you take four, ten more come. The shadow reaches to support you, but it is thin and guttering, and too late.

I do not understand what I am seeing until it is laid bare before me.

They put you down with chains against the base of my own shrine, several men, and they are not gentle. You are weak, because of me.

Lord Chancellor Enwright: Hold him!

Vivianne: Damion! Chancellor please–!

The rainstorm has finally arrived. It comes down through the open roof, warm heavy droplets. I lift my face to it and it is exactly as it was in my vision.

As it was in the falling.

For once, everything is clear.

They have you on your knees on the stone, a blade laid across the back of your neck, waiting to be given the order to end you once and for all. I cannot bear it.

Ten times you have carried me down these steps.

But only now do I know the truth.

I know what the water is. It is not a cure. It is the ground we broke coming into this world, and it has spent three hundred years trying to put us back together. Ten women have shattered under the weight of being mended, and one could not even face it.

But I am different.

I take a step closer to the water's edge, endless and still. They will not take you without me.

Lord Chancellor Enwright: Vivianne. Do not be a fool. You know what he is. You know this has to end.

Vivianne: Yes. For the first time in twelve lifetimes, I do. He is not the monster here, Chancellor.

Damion: Do not do this Viv, please look at me–

Another step. And another, until I am finally in the pool.

The water steals away my breath, sharp and sudden. I am only knee-deep and yet it is drowning me.

It travels towards my blackened fingertips like stalagmites, weaving through my mark. Seeking every place the dark ink has been, and the void it had not yet reached. It is not kind in its path. I feel it tearing apart every fibre of me from within, searching. The darkness grows along my neck and before I know it, it has taken over my eyes. For a moment, I am blind. The colour drains from them, leaving a hollowed grey in its path. The grey of my divine sight, now forever set.

As it searches, I finally understand what killed those before me.

The darkness enters my mind and I make my choice where they could not.

When it asks, something within me answers.

Lord Chancellor Enwright: Quickly! Kill him! We are losing time!

Every lamp and candle in the building goes out at once. Darkness pours down the walls and out of alcoves, in through the open roof, and it comes to my hand willingly. It has waited for three hundred years to feast, and finally, I am here.

The man with the blade at your neck does not get the chance to use it. I do not remember choosing what happens after. But I remember the sound of it. I can hear the rain as a sea of grey and gold run from me. They do not manage to reach the doors, the crown's men subject to their very own cruelty.

Then, silence.

I am standing in the middle of my own church, and the Lord Chancellor is on his knees before me. This part I remember perfectly.

Every second of it.

Lord Chancellor Enwright: Vivianne. Listen to me. Whatever you are now, you served the crown for nine years and you served it well, and there are men in that city who will hear reason–

Vivianne: Elsbeth was seventy-eight.

Lord Chancellor Enwright: She was a heretic, t-this place, it is–

Vivianne: –She was seventy-eight. She stood up for what she believed in.

He starts to reach for the next argument. Pointless debating had always been his forte.

Vivianne: You were just using me to get to him.

Lord Chancellor Enwright: It was for the safety of the kingdom–

Vivianne: No. It was power. That is all it has ever been with you. If you can not control it, it has to die.

He looks up at me then, and for the first time since he came through those doors, there is nothing on his face but a man who has understood the weight of his decisions.

Lord Chancellor Enwright: Vivianne–

Vivianne: That is not my name.